Schools’ Legal Bills Double the Norm

School officials, who say their district is so broke that some teachers and half the school nurses may be laid off, have spent nearly $2 million in legal fees during the last four years, more than double or triple the amount spent by many districts in the county.

In that time, almost $1 million was paid to the law firm of Melanie E. Lomax, a Los Angeles attorney and chief counsel to the Board of Trustees of the Compton Unified School District, according to a report prepared by the district’s financial staff. The rest of the legal fees went to other attorneys hired by the district for specific tasks such as labor negotiations.

The school district is trying to close a $7-million to $9-million shortfall in a budget of about $140 million.

Last year Compton spent at least $511,045 on legal work. That is $19.06 per child based on an enrollment of 26,800 students.

By comparison, the Montebello Unified School District paid legal expenses totaling $177,900, Business Manager Stephen L. Phillips said. That is $5.73 per child based on an enrollment of 31,000 students.

ABC Unified School District spent $226,389, said John Spang, director of fiscal services. That is $10.88 per child based on an enrollment of 20,800.

Lomax said Compton’s legal expenses are not out of line with those in a comparable metropolitan district that experiences a high number of lawsuits and starts several construction projects, as Compton has over the last four years.

However, a teacher on the labor negotiating team that has been trying all year to settle a work contract with the district called Lomax’s fees obscene, given that Compton is a poor community.

“If she really cared, she would take less excessive fees and maybe do some pro bono work,” teacher Patricia Ryan said.

One reason legal expenses are so high is because the administration and the board have mismanaged spending, Ryan said. She is past president of the Compton Education Assn., which represents teachers, librarians, counselors and nurses.

“This district has been run like a Third World country,” Ryan said.

The board requested its financial staff to prepare a report on the district’s legal costs after the trustees were presented with a 1990-91 budget that required millions of dollars in cuts, mostly in academic areas.

The staff report showed that Lomax’s law firm, Melanie E. Lomax & Associates, was paid at least $345,827 last year. Since the report was completed two weeks ago, however, the staff has increased its estimate to at least $372,294.

Lomax handles neither Compton’s labor negotiations nor most of the liability cases. Labor negotiations are handled by attorney Urrea Jones of Pasadena. According to the latest staff estimates, Jones was paid at least $47,604 last year.

By comparison, the $177,900 the Montebello district spent last year for legal services and the $226,389 spent by ABC Unified School District include the cost of labor negotiations and liability cases.

Long Beach Unified School District did most of its legal work, including labor negotiations, for about $332,438 last year, according to Theodore Buckley, attorney for the district.

That figure does not include some costs of liability cases, he said. Long Beach is the third-largest district in the state with 69,000 students.

So far this school year, Lomax has been paid at least $292,604 and Jones has received $30,976, according to the staff report.

Lomax, who has worked for the Compton district since 1982, said it is her understanding that the school board hopes to cut its legal expenses next year by about one-third. She has already sent the board a report stating that many of the legal expenses it paid during the last four years are about to disappear, she said.

During the last four years, her firm has aggressively pursued settlements or court victories in several outstanding lawsuits that are now complete, she said. The district also has undertaken a large building program which called for many construction contracts and finance plans. The contracts and funding agreements meant extra legal work, she said.

She mentioned the new stadium at Compton High School and the new educational services building at 417 Alondra Blvd.

Lomax also handles all the district’s business contracts and contested firings of employees, as well as suspension cases involving students.

Another reason the Compton district’s legal bills are high, Lomax said, is that it has an unusually high number of lawsuits. With its continuing labor problems, it is a highly politicized district, she said. “It’s a school district,” she said, “where people tend, rather than to sit down and discuss things, to file lawsuits.

“What I’ve said in my report is that legal services are a necessary evil,” Lomax said. As an example, she cited a suit the district has filed against a telephone company. The firm was to install a system that had 600 lines. Only 400 were installed, so the district had to file suit, she said, to recover the $250,000 it will take to upgrade the system.

One of the biggest problems with legal expenses, Trustee John Steward said, is that the district does not put them on the school board agenda and does not report a running total as the school year progresses.

“All payments to the attorney or any other vendor should be reviewed by the board,” Steward said. “If it were placed on the public agenda for review . . . the public would know how much of their money is going to the attorney instead of going for the benefit of the kids.”

Trustee Kelvin Filer confirmed that the trustees hope to cut legal expenses next year. “I think that the fact that so many of the trials have come to a head recently may make the fees go down,” Filer said.